May 23, 2017

SAN FRANCISCO - Less than one mile from reaching the final address, conversation between four Uber passengers came to an ass-dragging halt Saturday evening when the driver unexpectedly blew past a critical left turn, inevitably delaying their arrival by at least ten minutes. Conversation between the riders, which up until this point was jovial and bubbly, sputtered to a brutal halt as the car zoomed past the road they all knew the driver was supposed to turn onto. The driver had been dutifully following the mapping app's instructions for fifteen uninterrupted minutes when a lapse in concentration pulled their attention away from the phone just as it began to warn them of the upcoming turn.

The passengers helplessly watched in horror as the car sailed through the green light and away from their friend's apartment, the driver only realizing their error when the sudden silence in the car gave way to the phone loudly blaring its flailing attempts to find an alternate route. The driver, desperate to correct for their faux pas, proceeded to compound their mistake with an impulsive turn into a ferociously congested downtown thoroughfare, delaying their arrival yet again. At press time, the car and its occupants were sitting at a painfully long left turn red arrow, the deafening silence broken only by the slapping of thumbs against phone touchscreens as the passengers messaged each other to commiserate about their predicament.